COMMUNIQUÉ BY
THE JOINT WORK PLATFORM FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF COMMON BURIALS
The excavation, exhumation and analysis of the bodies recovered
in a number of common burials of Sancaypata and Ccarpaccasa,
in the locality of Totos, province of Cangallo, department
of Ayacucho took place on Friday, September 6th 2002.
The results reached that can be disseminated are:
Sancaypata Case
- The remains of at least five persons
were recovered. One of them was positively identified and
will be handed over
to the family. Other two will be submitted
to genetic analysis (DNA) for their identification, and results are expected
in a reasonable period. The other two may not be identified due to their
fragmentary state.
- Some cloth remains and bullet shells were
found together with the bodies.
- The difference between
the number of victims (fifteen) mentioned in the preliminary
investigation and the bodies
found (five) is due to the fact
that the burials
were altered and disturbed by animals, soil characteristics and other
external factors that cannot be determined.
Ccarpaccasa Case
- Four bodies with clothes and at least
20 bullets were recovered.
- The four bodies have been positively
identified as matching with the people sought for according
to the previous
report and will be handed
over to their
families.
Conclusions
- Out of a total of nineteen persons sought for in the
two cases, nine of them were found. Five of them were
positively identified
through
anthropologic and
dentistry methods, two will be submitted to genetic analysis
and the other two cannot be identified.
- IIt is possible
to state that the recovered physical evidence fully coincides
with the testimonial evidence gathered by the
preliminary investigation of facts. The three burials excavated
in Sancaypata
and
the three burials
intervened
in
Ccarpaccasa totally correspond with the facts related to
the disappearance of fifteen and four people respectively
in 1983.
The team that carried out this work, which took
12 days, was efficiently led by the Special Prosecutor
for Forced
Disappearances,
Out-of-Law
Executions and Exhumation of Clandestine Burials, Felipe
Villavicencio Terrero and
consisted of twenty technicians and specialists from three
institutions: PNP Criminology
Bureau, Public Prosecutor’s Office Legal Medicine
Institute, Truth and Reconciliation Commission Forensic
Investigations
Unit. Besides, Mercedes
Salado
from the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation, Luis
Fondebrider from the Argentinean Forensic Anthropology
Team and Isabel Reveco,
Chilean forensic
anthropologist
participated as foreign monitors. We wish to sincerely
thank them and all the team as a whole.
The experts appointed for the excavation and exhumation
work were Luis Fondebrider and Fabio Estrada from the Legal
Medicine
Institute
and
the experts appointed
for the morgue work were Luis Castillejo from the Ayacucho
Legal Medicine Institute, Félix Briceño from
the Lima Legal Medicine Institute and María
Inés Barreto from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
The Ombudsman’s Office was in charge of preparing
the preliminary report that laid the foundation for this
work.
Besides, they
and the Human Rights
National Coordination Entity participated in the whole
process of excavation exhumation
and analysis according to their constitutional attributions
as participants in the platform.
Finally, the four institutions
making up the Work Platform express they will direct their
efforts to identify and
submit those responsible
for
these crimes
to justice, crimes that are now certain as a result of
this long investigation process. Likewise, they restate
their
commitment
to seek truth and
justice, as essential requirements for a true national
reconciliation.
Lima, September 6th 2002
TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION
HUMAN RIGHTS NATIONAL COORDINATION
ENTITY
OMBUDSMAN’S OFFICE
PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE
 
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